Thursday, February 21, 2019

Differentiate QA and UAT just in 5 minutes

In order to have a successful software development project, Quality Assurance Testing (QA) and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) need to be carried out collaboratively and effectively. However, there are significant differences in how each is performed and who conducts the testing process. This article will help you to clarify these two terms and know how to use each test in specific situations.

QA vs. UAT in software testing. | testingtrendsxyz

Generally, the focus of Quality Assurance Testing (QAT) is to make sure that the quality of the software is in accordance with the standards. The User Acceptance Testing, on the other hand, looks at whether the software works in the real world and whether it meets the clients’ requirements to satisfy them or not.

Quality Assurance Testing (QAT)

Quality assurance is a technique to identify whether software products meet their specified requirements. It helps to check the products in these aspects: design, development, and production. Hence, QA ascertains the products meet all the necessary requirements when they come to the users.

Main features

Technology Oriented Tester

Functional Component

Integrated features

Requirements specification

Design Specification

Interface level entry points

Analysis of testing tools

UI end to end features

Prior to UAT

User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

User acceptance testing (UAT)’s goal is to see how a software product operating in the real world. It will be implemented when functional, design and regression testing is finished. During UAT, actual software users could be IT developers in the company who doesn’t join in the projects or any people do in the same business field as the client’s, will test the software to make sure it is able to tackle required tasks in real-world situations, following the specifications.

Main features

Business Oriented Testers

Business Scenarios

Real World business needs

UI end to end features

Final and Integrated

Prior to signing off/prod deployment

Major Difference between QAT and UAT

User involvement

User involvement is the key to differentiate QAT and UAT. In QAT, only the project team engage in testing the quality assurance processes. This process will never come out by any software developers. Meanwhile, in UAT, there is an involvement of real-users to make sure that the testing will be performed by those who will be using the program.

Acceptance

Also, the acceptance decision depends on the results of UAT, not QAT. Most of the technical problems are expected to be found in the QAT phase while how satisfaction the customers feel when using the software in real situations will be discovered in the UAT phase. At the end of the test, the UAT results affect significantly the overall acceptance decision.

All succeed software products need quality assurance and user acceptance testing, but how integrated the two tests are usually differ based on the company’s requirements. Hopefully, this article will help you to understand these two tests thoroughly, then allocate resources into each test in a reasonable way.